What is the easiest way to introduce new chickens to an existing flock?

[Lavenders_Blue]

do you know, I cannot remember how many times I have read on this forum the suggestion that cat food provides extra protein as a quick boost. but I do know that its a lot!

 

People seem to recommend feeding hens all sorts of weird foodstuffs on here though - yoghurt and marmite spring immediately to mind. I'm not convinced either can be very good for them. I wouldn't give a chook cat food either, it's very likely to contain chicken, and that's just wrong!

[beach chick]

just another thought - we are often 'recommended' to feed back scrambled egg, or baked egg shells. if there is a food chain issue, surely it's part of the same thing? not to mention the old which came first conundrum...

[snowberry]

One of mine, now sadly deceased, worked out where the cat-food bowls were and used to come into the kitchen if she could - often the first I'd know was hearing her beak pecking on the stainless-steel bowl! sorry to say it, but my hens love sicked-up cat food if they can find it!

 

eughhhh

[The Dogmother]

just another thought - we are often 'recommended' to feed back scrambled egg, or baked egg shells. if there is a food chain issue, surely it's part of the same thing? not to mention the old which came first conundrum...

 

What DEFRA are worried about is the cross-species feeding, especially in light of some intensive farming processes where the spread of diseases is more common.

[Chortle Chook]

just another thought - we are often 'recommended' to feed back scrambled egg, or baked egg shells. if there is a food chain issue, surely it's part of the same thing? not to mention the old which came first conundrum...

Feeding scrambled egg does not present the same dilemmas as cat food with dead chicken in it, because egg is what a hen lays in order to provide nutrients to the chick. The only 'out of the norm' thing here is that a) hens are grown up and so should not need egg and b) you have cooked it. Either way there should be no real harm done.

The 'cat food with dead chicken in it' thing is really only a concern to Defra if you (or someone else) is going to eat either the hen who has been the canniabl, or her eggs. I doubt if DEFRA are remotely concerned about the health of our chooks per se